


All the Lonely People

by StringedVictory



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Crack, Crack Treated Seriously, Do Not Archive, M/M, Physically Implausible Masturbation, write drunk edit never
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-17
Updated: 2019-10-17
Packaged: 2020-12-21 03:37:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21068198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StringedVictory/pseuds/StringedVictory
Summary: Martin takes a whirlwind tour of the Lukas family portrait gallery. It goes better than expected.





	All the Lonely People

The first thought that comes into Martin’s mind isn’t a feeling. It’s a thought.  
  
It isn’t the first conscious moment he has had since the Lonely took him. Far from it, in fact. In the time since then - which may be hours, weeks, even years, though he doubts it - he has helmed a ship across a vast ocean, crossed a desert on foot, stood on top of a mountain and felt nothing at all at the sight of the vistas before him. All the while, his brain has taken in sensory input, processed it dutifully, and filed it away. This is different. This is a thought.  
  
He is standing in a huge mansion, and the thought is: This is mine.  
  
He isn’t quite sure how he got there, considering he would have had to walk either through the front entrance and up the stairs to an immense landing, or in through the back. But he is standing there nonetheless, in the ill-fitting shirt and faded jeans he can recall as the last thing he wore to work. The shirt is stained; the jeans, ripped at the hems where he can’t keep from stepping on them. His travels have incurred no additional wear. He thinks he looks ridiculous, posed among the thick carpets and heavy curtains, all in deep burgundies and navy blues.  
  
He doesn’t feel ridiculous, of course. That would require him to feel. But he thinks it, all the same.  
  
The long staircase down to the foyer is lined with paintings. He stands facing the largest, carefully mounted in a gilt frame that borders on ostentatious, but stops just shy of it. It shows a pale, dark-haired man just middle-aged enough to be graying at the temples. The portrait is three-quarter-length, long enough that Martin can identify his outfit as a tailcoat. The whole thing strikes him as distinctly old-fashioned, but the nameplate settles the question of its provenance altogether. Mordecai Lukas, it reads in a copperplate typeface.  
  
Martin regards the portrait coolly, meeting the patriarch’s steely gaze. “Thank you,” he says aloud, or at least he thinks he says it aloud. If he’s correct, it’s the first sound he has made since - well, since. “For making me the man I am today.” It would have been sarcastic, if sarcasm held any meaning for him anymore. As it stands, there’s no reason not for it to be sincere.  
  
Mr. Lukas, of course, doesn’t respond. His stormy grey eyes continue to regard Martin placidly from the canvas. They match the sky behind him, Martin notices - he is depicted standing on a balcony against a backdrop of ominous gathering thunderclouds. His stomach lurches at the sight. On a hunch, he checks the signature - it reads “Paolo Abruzzese” in a distinctive hand he recognizes from sorting Peter’s correspondence. No reason for that to be his real name, he muses, but he hears Simon Fairchild’s laugh in his head and nearly retches.  
  
Martin lifts his eyes again to the painting’s face. “No, really,” he says flatly, using his vocal cords again, or at least he presumes he is. “Thank you. It’s better this way. Simpler. No more… office politics, no more paperwork, no more Elias, no more Daisy and Basira always getting angry with me, no more - no more Jon…”  
  
He swallows hard. “No more Jon recording statements,” he says, though his voice has begun to falter. “No more evenings waiting for him to finish up his work. No more… no more research errands for Jon, no more late night cups of tea, no more ‘thanks, Martin’…” He trails off. “Yes. It’s much better this way. Thank you, Mr. Lukas. You have successfully lanced the boil of my false hope.” His voice is getting louder, and he wonders vaguely whether he has carte blanche to feel again. “It’s not like Jon would have ever, actually, done any of the stuff I spent my nights in the archives thinking of. So I haven’t been deprived of anything at all. I’ve gained something, in fact. I’ve gained clarity.”  
  
Mordecai Lukas stares back. His mouth remains a firm line. Martin continues. “The One Alone is freedom, right, Mr. Lukas? Freedom from stupid things like looking at your boss reaching across his desk to plug in a lamp and, and, and wishing you were pressed up to him bending him over that desk, and, there’s just no room for that in the Lonely, so it’s all right, and why am I telling you this, I was about to say there’s no way you can hear me, but in fact I wouldn’t bet on that,” - Martin is suddenly aware of how dry his throat is, but he keeps rambling - “and in any case I’m not sure which is worse, you being… displeased to hear my stupid fantasy of pinning Jon to his desk and screwing him so hard he smiles, or… or you being pleased, I mean no I am sure, it’s pretty obviously worse if you’re pleased, but look Mr. Lukas, have you ever met someone who you, you just wanted to make them laugh, in any way possible, I mean I know you haven’t, you’re Mordecai Lukas, but just PRETEND you have, wouldn’t you just fuck the smiles into them if you had to, and - oh.”  
  
Martin looks down, as though he needed confirmation. He has an enormous erection. Of course he does.  
  
He sighs. This is his house now. Shouldn’t he be able to do what he wants?  
  
“Fine,” says Martin grouchily, unzipping his jeans. “Fine, have it your way.” It occurs to him as he says it that what he’s doing is precisely no one’s way but his own. He brushes that thought aside. “I’m going to prove to you once and for all that you’ve successfully severed all of my emotions and…. and desires, and here’s how.” He pulls his boxer briefs down. “Jon. Let’s talk about Jon. The Archivist one, I mean.”  
  
Distantly, some part of Martin reminds him that what he’s doing is completely fucking mental. He stifles it by gripping his cock firmly and beginning to stroke. “I used to spend hours,” he says, his tone oddly conversational now, “just thinking, you know? About him, and… and how he made me feel, like I just wanted to fuss over him and fix him a cup of tea,” he adds, continuing to tug at a leisurely pace. “I mean, god, not like I’d touch myself to the thought of fixing him tea,” he babbles, “I’m not that pathetic. Almost. But not quite.”  
  
With his left hand, he gives his balls a brief fondle, then abandons the effort as a futility while standing up. “No, you see, I’d have a nice long wank in the archives, tucked away in one of the nooks where no one could see me. And then?” A longer stroke, tighter this time, and he shudders. “I’d cry. I’d just, you know. Burst into tears.” Martin lets out a sad little choking laugh. “But I’m past that. I belong to the Lonely, and I can manage the wank without the cry, and that is how you’ll know you’ve won! Simple!” It’s not simple. It’s the convoluted logic of a madman, and he knows it, and he diligently stops himself from thinking about it.  
  
“Right,” he says, beginning to speed up, “a nice normal fantasy. Let’s do the desk one. Jon, over his desk, it’s after hours,” he’s panting as he narrates now - as he narrates his erotic fantasy to a painting, which is absolutely a normal thing to do - “and he can’t reach the lamp to plug it in, so he says ‘Martin, can you reach that for me’?” He’s slipped into a horrible gruff baritone that sounds nothing like Jon at all. “So… so I do,” he gasps, “and then oops, I’m pressed up against him, and he thanks me for plugging in the lamp, and - unnnngh - and I never really figured out, ohhhhh, how exactly things get to the next bit, but.” He trails off into a haze of whimpering noises. “Well, somehow his trousers come down around his ankles, and then he says” - the gruff baritone reemerges - “‘You know, Martin, I’ve always found you very - very-’ mmmmmmgh." His hand is starting to cramp, but he’s reached a furious pace and is beginning to lose control. “And then he - ahhhh-”  
  
A hot jet of cum hits Mordecai Lukas in the eye.  
  
Martin stands openmouthed for what feels like an eternity, examining his handiwork. “Um. That was weird. Are you going to… like, smite me?” There’s no response. “I guess not!” he adds, chuckling nervously. “I was right, though, wasn’t I? No tears, see?” He brushes his still-dry cheeks theatrically with an index finger. “I… I guess I still have a heart of stone, isn’t that the idea?”  
  
He feels better. He feels. Better. Damn it.  
  
Martin wipes his hand on his jeans, zips up, and gives the portrait a curt nod. “I suppose I’d better be on my way, Mr. Lukas,” he says gravely. “Lots of… of business to attend to.” The stain - which is at a height that greatly exceeds his usual line of fire, not that that is among the top ten strangest things going on here - has begun to drip down in a smear over Mordecai’s impassive face. Martin looks at it with something not entirely unlike pride.  
  
He makes his way toward the top of the grand spiral staircase, taking in his surroundings. Velvet, gilt, and dark wood are laid so thickly over everything it almost makes him gag. The walls bear elaborate sconces and little framed still lifes of empty wine bottles and fruit gone slightly off - which even he has to admit is a bit on the nose.  
  
At the top of the stairs, though, something sends a little twinge of annoyance through his brain before his eyes can even recognize it. It’s another painting, only slightly smaller than the first, and at first he assumes it’s Mordecai again. This man, though, is younger and better coiffed, quite good-looking even, with a trim moustache and a smooth bare chin. His expression, Martin decides, is what rubs him the wrong way. The man looks smug.  
  
Martin checks the nameplate: Gustavus Lukas. “Well, Gus,” he says under his breath, “what do you look so pleased about? Is that your dad up there, handing the whole thing over to you?” No, he recalls, not quite. The very first time Jon had directed him to look up the Lukas family, he’d discovered that Gustavus Lukas was Mordecai’s younger half-brother, and that the two of them had very likely orchestrated their father’s murder via clandestine correspondence while Mordecai was overseas. He’d been unable to substantiate that, of course, and all signs had pointed firmly away from a supernatural killing, but it had taken some research and he’d been proud of his detective work.  
  
Jon, for his part, had been guardedly pleased at what Martin had unearthed. “Very good, Martin, thank you” he’d said, not bothering to keep the surprise from his voice, and that phrase had rung in Martin’s ears for months afterward. “Very good, Martin,” Jon would say in his daydreams, as he knelt and sucked Jon’s cock eagerly, a firm hand guiding his head, and -  
  
Damn it, he’s hard again.  
  
How long has it been since he …. edited Mordecai’s portrait? Five minutes? If that is in fact the case, Martin muses, it would represent a personal best in refractory periods. An hour? A day? More? How long did he stand there, rambling and jerking and making a fool of himself? Perhaps it’s best not to question it.  
  
“Okay, Gus,” he says evenly, “is this another weird Lonely thing? Is rattling around an old metaphysical mansion alone an… aphrodisiac for you lot?” He scans Gustavus’ face for signs of confirmation. It’s a striking face, really, in a cruel sort of way, angular and flawless with deep-set eyes and a haughty lift to the chin.  
  
“Oh, I get it,” he said, a mocking edge creeping into his voice. “You don’t want me to play favorites with your brother. Well, fair’s fair!” This time, he has the forethought to drag over a gilded chair for convenience. “You want a Jon fantasy too? Well, fine.” He unzips, reclines, and takes a deep breath. “Okay. So… so Jon thinks I’ve done a terrific job, looking things up.” He starts to stroke himself languidly. “About you, Gus! Thank you, for the small part you play in… um… in my rich inner life.”  
  
Martin sighs and shakes his head. “Anyway. He says ‘Very good, Martin’.” Martin’s Jon impression has gained a modicum of credibility. “And… and I ask if there’s anything else I can do for him.” He feels his own face growing slightly hot at the cheesy dialogue running through his head, but continues. “So he says ‘Well, Martin, there is just one more thing,’ and then he just… sort of… motions me under his desk, and in the fantasy I guess his desk has to be much larger because - why am I explaining the logistics of this to you, Gustavus, I mean really.” He trails off and refocuses himself on his own cock, which is responding slowly to his divided attentions. “So I start sucking, and the noises he makes - god.” He throbs, and strokes harder, at the very thought. “And he… then he…” Martin gives up narrating and simply fixes his mind on the imaginary task of delivering the best blowjob of Jon’s life. At the moment he imagines Jon’s cum flooding his mouth, Martin is lost in voiceless gasps.  
  
He hits Gustavus in the middle of the forehead.  
  
“Oh good,” he says once he regains his breath. “Not the eye this time. That would be pretty weird, if all of this was just one big Eye thing. I mean… it isn’t, is it? I hope not.”  
  
Clytemnestra Sharpe-Lukas, a pointy-chinned blonde in an off-shoulder gown, is waiting just below Gustavus. Martin isn’t even surprised when he’s able to repeat his performance, this time with a “snowed in at work” scenario that became a favorite of his when the Corruption had him trapped in the archives. He notes with muted amusement that Ms. Sharpe-Lukas is already depicted wearing a very literal pearl necklace, which he hits without trying to aim. Ruthven Lukas, shown in hunting attire, gets shot in the chest. Emmeline Lukas Guarnieri gains a fresh stain amid the peacock feathers on her elaborate fascinator.  
  
Martin works his way down the staircase, drawing on his deep backlog of fantasies about Jon. The light coming through the windows waxes and wanes in a way wholly removed from anything resembling an actual day-night cycle. He notes with detached wonder that his physical and sexual fatigue have reached a low plateau. He isn’t spent, just slightly tired, and yet the tiredness always abates just enough for him to do it again.  
  
At the bottom of the staircase, the names get less ostentatious and more familiar, and a sense of apprehension builds at the back of his mind. He redecorates Hannah, James, and Jacob Lukas without problem - all evidently twentieth century additions, though they’re still paintings, not photographs. Nathaniel Lukas, clearly contemporary despite his elaborate cravat, poses a slight mental hurdle, but he’s able to surmount it with a particularly treasured dream of Jon fucking him in the shower. He stains the cravat, of course.  
  
Finally, he sees it at the bottom of the stairs - the thing he would be dreading if dread still held any meaning for him. It’s a small, squarish piece, about the height of his torso and a bit broader. The frame is gilded but otherwise unadorned - practically austere in comparison. The work is done in oils so thick that even at a distance he can see the layers of texture built up on the canvas. It shows the subject standing on the deck of a ship on unsettled waters, clad in a thick overcoat and wearing a cap pulled down tight around his ears. The barest glimpse of a limb at the upper right implies that a sailor is falling overboard, and yet the captain’s eyes are bright, his smile serene and unperturbed.  
  
Martin gulps. “Right. This is… um… well, no sense leaving a job unfinished!”  
  
He takes a deep breath. Professor and student? No, that just reminds him how acutely unaware he is of what student life is like. Jon the upstairs neighbor coming round to borrow a cup of sugar? Borrow a cup of sugar, like some kind of geriatric porno? He shudders. Raunchy night in a club? His own scant experiences with clubs tend to end with vomit and regret, and he doubts Jon’s ever set foot in one. He exhales and begins to tug languidly at his cock one last time, letting his mind wander.  
  
He’s at work. He’s filing something - statements, probably, he thinks, then shoves that thought aside as a distraction. He’s leafing through a pile of - god, he’s not in the archives. For obvious reasons, his work-dalliance fantasies have tended to center there. This time, though, he’s in the director’s office. Elias’s office, he still thinks of it secretly, and he shuts the obvious follow-up out of his mind for a fraction of a second more before it barrels full force into him. Peter’s office.  
  
Right, so this is how it’s going to be. He strokes faster. He’s working in the office, curating Peter’s email inbox. Jon arrives at the door. Jon reiterates his offer, and before he can get the words out Martin throws himself bodily at Jon and kisses him ravenously. Martin sweeps an arm theatrically over the desk, divesting it of laptop and pencils and directorial paraphernalia, and Jon sits on the edge, undressing frantically. He doesn’t bother narrating any of it, of course - he just needs to come, he reasons, needs it now, and then he’ll sort out the troublesome detail of what he’s actually meant to do in this Lonely hellscape. For the time being, all he needs is to imagine himself fucking Jon, hard and fast and joyous. A fantasy of joy, he reasons, isn’t real joy, so he doesn’t have to feel conflicted about it.  
  
To his own surprise, there’s a knock at the door of the imaginary office. Fine, he reasons, a little element of drama keeps things fresh. “Martin,” the dream-Jon murmurs into his neck, blissfully unbothered, and locks legs around his hips. Martin lets out a high-pitched whine.  
  
“Martin,” says another imagined voice, firm and much too familiar. Damn it, this fantasy is getting out of hand.  
  
“In a minute, Peter,” he shouts in the dream. And maybe in real life, if the mansion with sunrise peeking through the curtains counts as real, or indeed as life. “Just got some more filing to do,” he adds, thrusting deeper and making Jon moan.  
  
Martin closes his flesh-and-blood eyes. His hand is starting to lock up. He’s starting to lose his rhythm, so he compensates with speed. His cock itself feels strangely unscathed by what he knows should be a brutal undertaking. He fixes his mind on Jon’s face, openmouthed in ecstasy. Dream-Jon clenches his legs, pulling Martin in tighter, and that drives him over the edge.  
  
Eyes still closed, Martin exhales as he finishes coming in hot spurts.  
  
“Martin,” says Peter’s voice again, rising in pitch with annoyance. Martin frowns. Easy there, he thinks to himself. Fantasizing about consequences is just a little too realistic, maybe dial it back a bit-  
  
“Martin, I’m talking to you.”

Martin opens his eyes. He’s standing at the edge of Peter’s very real, very solid desk. From the other end, Peter is giving him a decidedly strange look. His entire face is visibly sticky.  
  
“Oh,” is all Martin can say.  
  
“You escaped,” says Peter with surprise, and a note of dismay. After a long moment, he wipes his face.  
  
“Yes,” says Martin, and he can’t keep the brightness out of his voice.  
  
“How?”  
  
“Funny thing about lonely people, Peter,” he says, a smile building at the corners of his mouth. “After a while, we tend to get really good at masturbating.”

**Author's Note:**

> Look, I promised a friend crackfic in an overzealous attempt at a bribe, and then failed to deliver on both timeliness and crackiness. Then I started to earnestly enjoy the concept of Martin being eaten by the Lonely and trapped as the lord of a metaphysical creepy Lukas manor forever. It turns out whiskey doesn't actually help with as much of the writing process as I thought it would, and so the whole thing turned into deadpan prose describing a ludicrous pornographic victory for the one guy we've had explicit confirmation will NOT be okay. 
> 
> But hey, it's going to get jossed in about three hours anyway.


End file.
